After Katrina breached those defenses that year, Van Heerden, who holds a Ph.D. in marine sciences from LSU, led Team Louisiana, an independent state-sanctioned investigation of the causes of the catastrophic flooding. The resulting report pointed the finger at inadequate design and construction of levees by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Van Heerden also authored a scathing analysis of the failure of federal, state and local authorities to anticipate the disaster and effectively deal with its aftermath, entitled, “The Storm: What Went wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina — The Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist.” It drew wide praise as one of the most incisive explorations of the fiasco; a PBS program on the subject featured van Heerden.

All of which apparently rocked too many boats and ruffled too many feathers in the academic bureaucracy of his employer. Van Heerden, who is not protected by tenure, was notified by administrators that he was removed from the staff of the Hurricane Center and that his research contract with the university would not be renewed when it expires next year.

The professor said he was only told the action did not result from his job performance.

The director of the Hurricane Center, LSU engineering professor Marc Levitan, resigned his post in protest of the school’s action. Levitan told the New Orleans Times-Picayune, “It’s time for me to come to [van Heerden’s] defense. For someone who has done so much for LSU and the state, this is uncalled for.”

According to Levitan and others, the firing caps a series of attempts by school administrators to force van Heerden to mute his criticism of authorities he deems culpable for the New Orleans disaster.

In an interview after his termination van Heerden recounted that in 2007 after he was asked to testify in home-owner lawsuits against the Corps of Engineers, former LSU president Sean O’Keefe warned attorneys that no one from the school would be allowed to embarrass the Bush Administration or the Corps. O’Keefe, who left LSU last year, is a former George W. Bush appointee to head NASA.

In a Times Picayune commentary, reporter Bob Marshall concluded that LSU officials believed van Heerden was a threat to multimillion-dollar research contracts for coastal and wetlands work that would be done in partnership with the Corps of Engineers.

Meteorologist Jeff Masters, who blogs for the Weather Underground web site, applauded van Heerden’s “tenacity in calling it as he sees it” and as someone whose input is much needed to protect the Gulf Coast from the threats of hurricanes and rising sea levels. One of van Heerden’s proposals is a comprehensive plan to protect New Orleans with new wetlands and massive flood gates on Lake Pontchartrain, an idea not unlike a recent proposal to protect the upper Texas coast from storm surges.

According to Dr. Masters, “the move by Louisiana’s flagship university to silence his voice should concern everybody in the path of the next Katrina.”

Or the next Ike. If LSU has no use for him, a Texas institution should consider extending an invitation to the professor to bring his courage and storm-fighting talents here.